Here is a delicious and spicy marinade or stir fry sauce I came up with one night when I had way too many freshly roasted hatch chilis and also happen to have a bag of fermented black beans in the pantry. If you dont want to freshly roast mild green chilis, you can use the store bought one found in the Latin Foods sections of most stores...just make sure you look for the mild ones unless you want really spicy sauce.

Fermented Black Beans are an Asian food product that can be found usually at Asian grocery stores. They come in a vacuum stealed bag, and you should rinse them a couple times before using to get rid of excess salt. I know they seem weird and intimidating but they are an awesome "sometimes" ingredient that really packs big flavor and "umami" to boot.

Spicy Black Bean and Roasted Green Chili Sauce

Yields 2 cups sauce

12 oz roasted green chilis, mild-medium, seeds removed as best you can. Make either fresh or store bought in a can, and drained

3/4 cup fresh tomato, cut into chunks

1/4 cup fermented black beans, rinsed in cool water for about a minute

juice of 2 limes

juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced

1 TB toasted sesame oil

2 TB sugar (whatever kind you prefer, I use coconut palm usually or brown rice syrup)

2 teaspoon tamari (or whatever soy sauce you prefer)

cayenne pepper to taste (however spicy you like it)

3 scallions, thinly sliced

Add all ingredients, except scallions, to a food processor. Pulse ingredients till a chunky, but well incorporated. Stir in scallions. Use as a stir fry sauce, or marinate veggies and/or tofu, tempeh, seitan in the sauce and grill or roast them.

Thanks for the votes and likes!
Fermented Black Bean is an Asian food product, that is used to make many things, but the most familiar to Western cultures is Spicy Black Bean Sauce found at Chinese restaurants. Here is the wiki page explaining everything you ever wanted to know about Douchi, aka Fermented Black Bean, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douchi
Umami is as taste, which the word to describe it comes from Japanese. It is a savoury taste most associated with MSG, but it also found in other natural glutamate foods like soy sauce or miso. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami

EDIT FROM THE CHEF: This recipe is actually not soy free, as Fermented Black bean is a kind of soybean....I am not sure if there could be a substitute in this recipe, maybe cooked black bean with a spoonful of soy free miso (south river makes a few)